Harald Karla of Soundcells does things a little differently than other sound designers. While other companies are sampling big name synthesizers for the thousandth time he searches out original sound sources like the Amiga 1200 computer and LL Electronics Rozzbox synthesizer and ignores current dance trends in favor of tone and sound. His Bitbumper Deluxe was one of the very first refills I ever bought for Reason and it's still one of my most used! In this interview Harald touches upon his own music creation, his work at Soundcells and his beginnings in music.
- Who's behind Soundcells and where are you based?
The “heart” of Soundcells lies in Germany, about an hour’s driver from Cologne, in a somewhat more rural area. As the main person behind Soundcells, I am the one who’s coming up with themes for ReFills, takes care of the full realization of a ReFill. In addition, I am responsible for most of the demo tracks. Towards the end – when a new set is about 80 – 90% finished – more people come aboard, mainly to beta test the set. Although I meticulously take care of all details, from the labels for buttons and knobs to the correct functioning of all parameters assigned to the Combinator, it’s easy to miss that one mistake. This is where a new set of eyes and the general distance of others really help.
I also appreciate the help I get with the production of additional demo tracks. Everybody’s individual approach to this is clearly reflected in the result, thus improving the tonal presentation of the products.
- What was your first instrument and how did you get into sound design?
It all started at the age of 6 or 7 with an harmonica which I taught myself to play, and I continued to do so for some time. Pretty soon I developed an interest in electronic sound generators. Accordingly, on the radio the songs I liked the most were those that featured these “new electronic sounds”. It must have been at the age of 10 or 11 that I got increasingly interested in keyboards, which were becoming more and more common at that time. It was only a few years later that I owned my first one. Looking back it’s kind of interesting that it was not the hottest Yamaha device from that time (which already featured sample-based drums), but a slightly older model which, however, allowed to fiddle around with tone colors.
That just wasn't enough and two years – an a hard vacation job – later it was replenished with a first synthesizer: A Yamaha DX100. Probably not the most fortunate beginning regarding ease of use, but I didn’t know anything else anyway, and hey, after all it was the DX7’s “little brother” :0). And so even the small, unlit 2x16 character display couldn’t keep me from creating my first “own" sounds the very first night. From that time it just never stopped…
In 2006, “Mystic Dream Pads Vol.2” (which is now, along with MDP4 and MDP5, a full component of “Pads - the BIG box”) came out as my first ReFill for Reason.
- Your refill Analogue Signatures v.2 has samples from a Moog Source, Korg MS20, and the Waldorf Microwave 1 synthesizers. What gear do you use for Sampling and how do you get such great sounding samples?
There is really not much to tell, and definitely no big secrets involved here. For several years now I’ve been using a pretty average but solidly working M-Audio Delta 1010 card. Prior to the actual sampling – and maybe that really is the secret – everything is routed through an old analogue MACKIE SR24-4 board. It’s actually nothing special, but maybe that’s that certain “analogue feeling” :0). Quite frankly, I don't think too much about it – use some reasonable synthesizer settings, set levels to optimum and send everything straight into the computer. In case I have to choose the finest from several samples, I’ll pick them very spontaneously and instinctively…
- The Simple Sampling Refill samples instruments from a Stylophone to a Doepfer MS-404 to a mini kalimba - how do you decide what kind of refill you're designing and what instruments you'll sample?
Usually, the direction into which a ReFill would develop comes up quite spontaneously as well. The idea behind “Simple Sampling” was basically a pure Stylophone-based ReFill designed as a Christmas gift for customers. However, merely a few demo tracks with one Stylophone sound appeared to be somewhat meager – so some additional “helpers” needed to be thrown in. Since that ReFill was a really impulsive idea and the timeframe being accordingly tight, it had to be kept as simple as possible but without a lack of quality. So elaborate multi-sampling just wasn't an option… - an idea for a name and some additional content of the ReFill was born. I had finished sampling of the MS404 quite a while ago and that 5-tone mini kalimba had also been waiting on my hard disk for some time…
When I am searching for topics for a new ReFill, I usually ask myself what soundset I would find interesting or if there is anything I miss so far... Most importantly, there should always be a good reason for creating and also publishing a new ReFill.
- I dig your website as well as your combi backdrops, do you hire out for your design work and/or do you have a hand in it?
It’s sort of a mixture of both, really – a large part of the backdrops and product images comes from the time in which the ReFills were not generally created for Soundcells. Luckily, it’s not a problem to continue using them. For others, I’ve had new backdrops created during the making of the Version 2 editions. The hardest thing with that has always been putting my own ideas into words – this means there is no chance of trying and fine-tuning the results. Also, data handling is done by somebody else, making small changes (which I would usually take care of myself) much more difficult…
As a consequence, I meanwhile decided to handle it all on my side. At the moment, I take full responsibility the website design. For the product texts, however, I’ll just provide some guidelines and then rely on external support.
- One of the coolest things Soundcells does, in my opinion, is continually upgrade their products. bitBUMPER Deluxe v2 for example has 130 new combinators from some new sources. How's the reception been to your renewed products?
Well, bitBUMPER deluxe v2 is actually an exception – the average update includes about 10 - 20 new Patches and usually some minor improvements or adaptions. There is no unique rule as to when an update will be created or how elaborate it will be. For example, if the basic programming of a Combinator patch has changed, these changes (as long as they can be realized with reasonable effort) will become part of the update. Also, there is always potential of improving the graphics – so why not put that into a ReFill update?
Moreover, Version 2 editions are a nice opportunity to tackle the extension of existing Refills with a “fresh set of ears”. The high point of all this is that these updates are always free for users of the previous version :0))
- Speaking of bitBumper, BB features samples from a Rozzbox synthesizer! The Rozzbox is boutique synth I've always wanted to get my hands on, did/do you own one or did you borrow it for the refill. And what did you think of the Rozzbox?
I consider myself lucky to own a Rozzbox V2 – a wonderful synthesizer with a lot of character, a very individual sound and also pretty complex – at least since version 2. The RB offers some features not easily perceived at first sight, making this synthesizer a *really* outstanding device. The Rozzboxes’ behavior is far from being perfect, but it always sounds so distinctive – and that’s exactly one of the features that make this little box so hot. There’s plenty of ways to create a complete and awesome ReFill using nothing but the Rozzbox V2.
- You also a record under the name Jonson and have 3 releases under your belt! What gear do you use in your own music production and does Reason and Record play a role in it?
Oh my, that Jonson website is really calling for an update… :0)
For album work, I also tend to set up some sort of objective. For example, the entire first album “Chiplandschaften” was made using a Yamaha A5000 Sampler which was in turn loaded with samples from an AMIGA 1200 – 15MB of 8 bit samples and one sampler – that was it! (With reverb being the only external effect.) It was a really gratifying experience to NOT use all this equipment I had at hand, but rather rely on these limited resources and just be creative. I wasn’t using Reason at that time.
Album No. 2, "p_composing", was almost entirely produced on a computer using softsynths, but I wasn’t using Reason at that time either (about 2004-2006).
For “Mindlock”, however, it’s been the other way round. I had discovered Reason at that time, created my first ReFills and so I was already pretty familiar with this software. This album is 100% Reason, and version 3, that is. So far, nobody complained about the sound – quite the opposite :0) In general, I think that Reason / Record is really underestimated. Although I have to admit that I also regarded the software as a toy for quite some time…
The Combinators introduced in Reason 3 made me change my mind, however. Pretty soon, R & R became my favorite software until today, the Combinators are a powerful tool, and R & R offers a higher degree of modularity than you would expect.
- Reason 5 and Record 1.5 have just recently been announced, have you had a chance to test the betas and what are you excited about in Reason 5 and Record 1.5?
Of course I checked out the betas – all new features are mentioned on the Propellerhead website, anyway. Basically, it is once more a big step towards a direction which R&R did not support until now – Kong offers a wider range of tonal options and Neptune allows much more that just editing the voice...an that’s because you can rewire just as you like. It’s probably the numerous small improvements which you don't want to miss after a while. Sure enough there are still some things that would be nice to have, but there is general improvement and most likely the new versions will again run incredibly stable so that you tend to forget to save things every now and then – and to me, this one of the major advantages of this software.
- Your ReFills run the gamut from lo-fi to ambient to classic analog sounds. Who are some of your own musical heroes and where do find the inspiration to release such cool products?
There are no particular icons. In my early years, I used to listen to everything that hit the charts, the preference – as mentioned earlier – being songs with a “clear electronic focus”. A few years later my interest turned towards the “Pat Metheny Group”, an influence that is reflected in my sounds and songs from that time.
On the one hand, my inspiration for ReFills or sound design in general is simply based on a passion for (electronic) tonal colors. On the other hand, I have seen many excellent synthesizers throughout the years – with often just mediocre default presets, cobbled together in boring and uninspired way. Soundcells ReFills are the exact opposite: The patches can be used to “play around with”, they are often quite adaptable and programmed with a lot of attention for detail. According to my definition, a good soundset has to have the potential to inspire. No matter if a particular sound has to be swapped or edited at a later point, it still served as an important source of creative ideas. The range of different sound styles in a ReFill simply matches my personal taste.
- Your latest release, Digital Genome, features sounds from an old Commodore Amiga 1200 computer! I'm really impressed with the demos (check out Karla's "The River" and Adam Fielding's "Looking Back"). While I'm old enough to remember the Amiga computers I never actually owned one, though I do know there were a few trackers made for them like OctaMED. What was it like working with the Amiga 1200 and what software did you use to design the sounds on the Amiga?
Funny enough, I never actually worked with an Amiga 1200. I got hold of this computer by coincidence – at a time when most people had long since lost interest in the Amiga and the like. As I was still using an Atari then, I found the Amiga quite fascinating. It was the tracker scene existing around this computer with its sometimes highly interesting and truly creative demos (i.e. videos with, I guess, 4 track audio) which finally led my way to several programs. I then used one of these programs (AHX) to make the Amiga play tones and short sequences. These were then recorded on a Yamaha A5000 sampler whose awesome filters and unconventional effects helped to finally bring the sounds to life. I recorded a first track based solely on these samples and the sound was so fascinating that the idea was born to produce a whole album exactly this way. Towards the end of 2008, these samples were recorded again. This time with the objective of creating some kind of a “Chiplandschaften” ReFill – “Digital Genome” taken literally.
- What are you currently working on and what can we expect from Soundcells in the future?
“Salad Bar” version 3 just came out, the next month will see a version 2 of “Afterglow”. New ReFill projects are hardly more than concepts in my head, so I won’t give away anything of that right now… In general, I don’t intend to publish more than two or three new ReFills per year, just because a good set takes its time and, of course, the content has to make some sense.
In the future, Soundcells will continue to focus on ReFills, although there are plans to offer soundsets for softsynths and maybe some sample packs as well. Whatever the outcome will be, new sounds or sets will have to fulfill the aforementioned inspirational requirements - no matter what format will be used… There will definitely be no ReFills or soundsets following an trend or fashion.
Thanks for the great interview Harald! As a special treat to Resonant Filter customers Harald has offered a 20% discount to RF readers thru the month of August! This discount is good on all Soundcells products and redeemable with the coupon code "resonantfilter".
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